Auerbach got here to England in 1939 as a toddler refugee after fleeing from Nazi Germany.
Painter Frank Auerbach, who fled Nazi Germany to Britain as a toddler, has died at age 93, his representatives say.
One of many foremost painters of the twentieth century, Auerbach died at his dwelling in London on Monday.
Geoffrey Parton, director of Frankie Rossi Artwork Initiatives, mentioned on Tuesday that they’d misplaced “a pricey good friend and noteworthy artist however take consolation understanding his voice will resonate for generations to come back”.
Born in Berlin in 1931, Auerbach got here to England in 1939 as a refugee throughout World Battle II below the Kindertransport scheme, which rescued primarily Jewish youngsters from Nazi territory.
His engineer father and his mom, who skilled as an artist, had been each killed within the Auschwitz focus camp.
He studied on the St Martin’s Faculty of Artwork and the Royal School of Artwork in London and devoted his life to portray, turning into one of many foremost artists of the twentieth century.
His gallery mentioned the British-German painter lived and labored in the identical north London studio from 1954 till his loss of life.
Alongside the opposite “Faculty of London” post-war artists – together with Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Leon Kossoff – Auerbach targeted on figurative work whatever the altering inventive fashions, typically slathering canvases in thick layers of paint to provide near-abstract however recognisable landscapes.
Auerbach informed The Guardian in an interview that he estimated 95 p.c of his paint ended up within the bin.
“I’m looking for a brand new method to categorical one thing,” he mentioned, including, “So I rehearse all the opposite methods till I shock myself with one thing I haven’t beforehand thought-about.”
In 1986, he represented Britain on the Venice Biennale and gained the Golden Lion prime prize.
In later life, his work was valued at excessive costs, together with in 2023 when his portray Mornington Crescent, impressed by the streets in Camden, north London, close to his dwelling, offered at Sotheby’s public sale home for $7.1m, a document for the artist.
His most up-to-date exhibition, Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads, opened in February at London’s Courtauld Gallery.
The artist is survived by his son, Jacob Auerbach.
